


Dead of Night

by sunflower_beatles



Category: Orville Peck - Fandom
Genre: AU, Dark Academia, Death, Drama, M/M, Murder, Orville Peck - Freeform, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27676736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflower_beatles/pseuds/sunflower_beatles
Summary: In 1800s France, Caspian LaFlamme of the royal LaFlammes struggles with his secret feelings for men. His family, too, try to cover up the fact that their sixteen-year-old son was caught with the stable boy the previous year. But when an evening masquerade ball ends in steamy skinny dipping with a mysterious family acquaintance, Cas knows he cannot go on denying his feelings any longer.
Relationships: Orville Peck/OC
Kudos: 1





	1. Laughing On The Outside

**Author's Note:**

> Huge disclaimer I know next to nothing about France in the 1800s and royalty in general, I just really wanted to write an Orville fic that had murder and dark academia vibes. Here is the playlist I listened to while writing: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0s0X0cuCNvIM97qy575YiL?si=-fTVSSbhSHaGsNn1Qb4kVw (made by my dear friend Lily!)  
> I hope y'all enjoy!

I push through the crowd, feel people’s bodies against my own. Hear their forced laughter, smell the grainy powder of their ridiculous wigs. I twist my way out of the crowd of people making sickly sweet pleasantries with one another and lean on the balcony. I listen to all the rich nutcases in our ballroom talk about the economy, or the terribly nice weather we’ve been having, or their kids’ recent achievements. Women in skirts as wide as they are tall and gentlemen in elaborate tuxedos that hug the curves of their waists and calves fill the ballroom as far as I can see, each one of them in a painfully detailed glimmering mask. I scoff and face the palace grounds, trying to block the pointless chatter from my mind. No one can have a real conversation anymore and it is quite disheartening. I tug up my pants that always seem to be loose no matter how tight I pull my belt and immediately feel a strong hand across the back of my head. 

“Show some decency, Caspian James,” my mother hisses in my ear. “That is no way to adjust your garments in the presence of a lady!”

“What la-,” I begin, then turn to see a girl on my mother’s arm. “Oh.”

“Darling, I’d like you to meet Bridgette Grange, daughter of Lord and Lady Grange. Surely you remember something of them?”

I know this routine all too well by now. I put on a charming crooked grin and nod. “Yes, Mother, I do.”

“Miss Grange has no company tonight and tells me she is quite lonely, isn’t that right, Miss Grange..?” Bridgette agrees and I genuinely can’t tell if she’s faking her melancholy or not. “Would you let her tag along with you tonight, dear? Who knows, maybe you two will get along nicely!”

The familiar pressure of unwelcome traditional responsibility resettles on my shoulders. I offer a smile and Mother is off, presumably to powder her face for the eightieth time tonight. Bridgette crosses her arms and looks me up and down. “Well, are you going to ask me to dance or what?”

Or what.

I put up with her for twenty minutes, then fumble through an excuse that I need to use the men’s room and head for the grounds. I have always loved the well-kept areas of the palace grounds, but my favorite spots by far are those where the orderly meets the wild. Perfectly-trimmed hedges collide with wild, weaving grass; the bases of smooth limestone sculptures overrun with ivy; I feel this way most of the time - overrun with a thick poison that threatens to encase my body entirely.

An abrupt sob escapes my throat and I sink down onto the marble stairs that lead to the guesthouse. It all crashes over me at once like a monstrous wave over a west-bound ship - dousing every crevice and when the ocean flattens again, I am gone, sunken to the murky depths with nothing more than a flurry of angry bubbles to mark my existence. 

I become aware of a low rumbling in my skull that blocks all external noise. I stumble across the steps to the man-made pond at the side of the guest house. Who needs a pond at their regular house, let alone the guest house? The rim of stones around the small pond is laced with moss and lichen, and the clear dark water is dotted with lily pads. I hastily kick off my stupidly tight shoes and peel away the ridiculous getup Mother had me in for tonight. Urgency takes over, the need to stop the buzzing in my head, and I step over the stones and slide into the water. It’s cool, but it’s refreshing on such a hot evening. As I sink up to my neck, I become aware of the fact that I am nude, but better that than spending another second in those horrifying clothes and in that horrifying place. I yank off the ugly mask that covered the upper half of my face and toss it away.

How can they still expect me to fancy dancing with girls, flirting with girls, kissing girls, marrying a girl, after what happened last year?

“Mind if I join you?”

I spin around so fast I accidentally soak my face with water. A masked man about my age leans against a birch tree a few feet away, too relaxed to be one of them, but still holds his head high in confidence. His dirty blonde hair, while still visible, is obscured on the sides by a mask unlike any other I’ve seen. It’s a deep black hue, fastened with small, neat stitches. Long golden fringe hangs over his mouth and down to the top of his chest, where his collarbones would meet his pecs. Penetrative blue eyes train on me. I must have stared for too long because he asks again, “May I join you?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” I say, and as he undresses I look away and try to ignore the pounding of my heart. He slips into the water and I avoid his gaze. His wet shoulders look strong and gorgeous in the moonlight.

“What are you doing out here all alone?” he asks in his deep and ridiculously handsome voice. I simultaneously wish he would back away and touch me at the same time. 

“Can’t stand parties,” I say, clearing my throat. 

“Yeah, me either.” I glance up and his eyes smile at me. “I’m Orville, by the way.”

“Caspian. Friends call me Cas.” 

“Cas.” My name sounds like magic in his mouth. He extends his hand and never lets go of my eyes as we shake. It suddenly occurs to me he is nude, and I am also nude, and we are in a pond together, nude. Fuck. History always finds a way to repeat itself.

“Um, well, it’s been great meeting you, but I really have to get back to the party.” I begin to climb out of the water but he grabs my wrist.

“If you hate it so much, why are you going back?”

I hesitate. Why am I, really? Why do I stay here and put up with all this fuckery?

And for the first time in my life, I find myself sitting back down. 

We talk for an hour, our fingers and toes wrinkling in the warm water. I learn that he knows my family because he sells us our chickens’ feed and I guess they’re close enough to invite him to a masquerade ball. He is no royalty but he has a certain charm about him, like he could get anything he wanted just by opening his mouth.

Orville is considerably closer to me now, treading water in the deepest part of the tiny pond. He’s so close I can feel the echoes of his movements in the water like a gentle touch. The fringe of his masquerade mask floats on the surface of the water. My heart beats a little quicker.

“I know who you are, Caspian LaFlamme.” He drifts closer to me. 

“Y-yeah?” I stutter.

“You’re just like me.” His eyes flit down to my mouth and back up again in a fraction of a second. “We both like what’s happening right now.”

I reach to push the mask off his face so I can kiss him, but he grabs my wrist for the second time tonight. “The mask stays on,” he growls in my ear, sending chills down my spine and blood rushing to my pelvis. I instead brush back the fringe and his perfect pink lips crash against mine. His hands roam over my body under the water, slick and incredible. It’s been so fucking long since I’ve touched a man this way; I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it - the forbidden air of it, the rough edges and muscles flexing under my fingertips - I spent far too many nights waiting for this sort of thing to happen again, and God, I am glad it is finally here. He is harsh and wet and beautiful when he pulls back and pulls my entire naked body against his in the moonlight. His skin shimmers with water droplets and he kisses me again and I dissolve into him.

* * *

The sky is burning red low in the east by the time we part. We go with a promise to meet next week, this time in town, at his flat. Supposedly he lives above his feed shop on the main road. I walk with him to the stables, both of us in varying states of dress, but equally drunk on the touch of the other. He prepares his horse and rides away into the sunrise, back to his normal life.

I dress quickly behind a feeding trough and on the walk back to the castle I run a list of good excuses through my head. Had a little too much to drink, went for a walk, woke up in the garden, stumbled home, and here I am. Mother is used to my affinity for alcohol by now; she won’t question it.

It’s back to my life I go. One week. I can wait for one week in order to feel again.


	2. Let's Kill Tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for homophobia and violence

Getting out of the castle unnoticed is the trickiest part of this endeavor. I wear my quietest shoes but still I must tiptoe because the marble floors produce an offensively loud echo with every movement. I close the heavy oak doors behind me with a squeak and run down the hill to the stable, where I saddle up my horse and ride to town. The countryside smells of dust and freshly turned earth.

I’m never the one that does the errands in town, so I barely know my way around. The townspeople give me odd looks as I ride tall on my horse through the shop-lined streets. Compared to them I must look like a shimmering god, though I tried to dress myself down. I stop to ask a baker for directions to the street Orville’s shop is on, and he wrinkles his nose. “Someone like you shouldn’t be down that road, lad.” He shakes his head. “Best of luck to ya.” \

I depart with a fresh pastry in hand and a worry in my heart. It’s not long before I find the street and suddenly I’m standing in front of Orville’s shop. It’s smaller than I had pictured, rather run-down and tucked away in a corner that doesn’t have much traffic. I tie my horse to a sturdy post and step into the little shop.

Inside smells of animals and warm hay. A thin cloud of dust hangs in the air, but the light streaming through the wide windows creates a beautiful spotlight for the main attraction: Orville. He stands in the light speaking to a customer about the proper grasses their cows should be eating. I notice he still wears a mask: this time, a simple bandana-like cloth with eye holes cut out. I browse the sacks of feed that line the walls and we pretend not to notice each other until at last the customer leaves the shop and Orville snakes his arms around my waist and kisses my neck.

“Hey,” he whispers into my shoulder. I spin around and smile into a kiss. He pushes me against the wall, hips grinding against mine, and quickly locks the door and flips the OPEN sign to CLOSED. He then takes my hand and leads me upstairs to his small bedroom where I soon learn what it really means to fuck.

-

Laying in his arms in the mid-afternoon post-sex haze, his hand running sleepily through my hair, he tells me about his life. How he grew up moving from place to place, his father a traveling musician and his mother the unofficial roadie, lugging instruments and three kids from country to country. How he ran away when he turned thirteen and bounced from shelter to shelter until he finally landed here in France and opened his feed shop at nineteen. How he’s lived above it ever since.

“I like the stability this little building offers me,” he whispers as I listen to his heart beating. “All my life I have only wanted to stay in one place and have a sense of home.”

“I get that, to some degree,” I reply. “I have never felt that my house was my home.” I want to add that  _ he _ feels like my home, but it feels too soon.

-

Over the next few months, I visit him and he visits me, sometimes as often as every day, and sometimes not for as long as two weeks. We each bring our bodies and stories for after our bodies are spent. We fuck all over the palace grounds and on every piece of furniture in my bedroom, and in every nook and cranny of his flat and his shop. Mother is still oblivious to my relations with Orville, but regardless, she still sets me up with the daughters of our allies at every function we attend. Father is essentially a brick wall but I know he encourages this. It sends my blood pressure skyrocketing. They know full well I am not interested in girls. It’s been over a year now since they caught me sucking off the stable boy and they still think that somehow I’ll meet the right girl and they’ll be able to throw a royal wedding and we’ll move into a castle on their money and carry on the bloodline or whatever. It angers me to the point where I have to physically remove myself from their presence because I know if I stayed I might not be able to restrain myself from an outburst.

When I tell Orville this I can practically see the steam billowing from his ears. The mere mention of my parents infuriates him. One evening we are laying together in the tall grass by the pond where we first met and I tell him my parents’ latest bullshit: they’ve arranged a private date with a girl, a princess, from England. They’re sailing all the way here to meet me.

“They think we’re a perfect fit,” I scoff. “Can you imagine me with a girl?”

His eyes burn with intensity. “Absolutely not.”

“Exactly. It’s preposterous.”

“Cas,” Orville says. “Did you ever realize that you can get rid of these problems?”

I look at him inquisitively. “Go on?”

He smiles a little crooked, his eyes fiery under his mask. “It’d be so easy, you know. Just, a quick little drop in their drinks, and they’re gone for good.”

I sit up, confused. “Are you really suggesting I-”

“We, darling,  _ we _ .” He leans close to me and I feel the familiar rush of blood south. “We could put their bullshit out forever.”

He holds me in a trance but it is momentary. I shake my head and laugh in disbelief. “I can’t  _ kill _ my parents, Orvy, they’re my  _ parents _ .”

He shrugs and kisses me. His touch is like a belly full of alcohol. 

“Suit yourself.”

-

I manage to put the whole murder proposal out of mind and the following week we are hosting another ball (non-masquerade) and who is on the guest list but Orville. I prepare so intently that Mother actually comments on how well-put-together-for-once I appear. I try not to take that to heart and focus on how I am going to keep my hands off Orville while we’re in a public setting.

I’m pretending to make interesting conversation with some of Father’s peers (a skill I have become quite good at over the years) when I spot him entering the ballroom. He looks so fucking incredible that I nearly go weak at the knees. A pale waistcoat and crimson tailcoat hug his chest and shoulders in precisely the right spots. The wrinkled mask is still tied around his head. His pressed trousers leave little of his groin to the imagination. I have to force myself to look away but it’s not long before I feel his eyes on me. 

After half an hour of glancing at each other across the room I lose him in the crowd. I try to push him out of my mind and converse when I hear Mother say my name, immediately boiling my blood. 

“Caspian, dear, have you met Mr. Orville? He brings us our chicken’s feed to fatten them up and make those eggs you so enjoy!”

My heart nearly stops and I turn slowly and face Orville. “I have not, Mother! It’s a pleasure,” I say, plastering a smile on my face and shaking his hand. “How come you have a mask..?”

“A personal preference,” he says, though I know this already. 

“Well, Caspian, I could use a drink! Would you and Mr. Orville be so kind..?”

I smile and kiss her hand. “Of course, Mother.” She flies off, probably to find some girl to put to the test of converting me.

At the unattended bar, we can’t help but break into laughter. If only Mother knew! I begin pouring her drink and Orville grabs my wrist. He shows me the small vial that rests in his palm, and in his stare, I immediately know what it is.

“Now’s our chance, darling,” he whispers. “We can be free.”

Without thinking, I nod. He makes up a drink for Father too and into each goes one, two, three drops of translucent poison. I watch as if hovering above my body, completely detached and unable to stop. Unable doesn’t mean unwilling, I tell myself, though I know deep down I want this. I want my parents to pay for the shit they’ve dragged me through. The “therapy”, the pain, what was essentially torture put onto me for a full year. They deserve what’s coming to them.

“Cheers,” Orville says, clicking Mother’s glass with Father’s. We spot them conversing with a group and with each step my head only fills with more rage. It rings in my ears and fills every fiber of my body. I fake a smile and hand Mother the goblet. Orville takes Father’s previous glass and gives him the poisoned one. I watch perhaps a little too intently as they absentmindedly raise the glasses to their lips, swallow, wait. My heart pounds. Orville and I turn away. We make it five steps before there are two thuds and the ladies shriek. I turn and find myself frozen at the sight of both my parents in convulsions on the ballroom floor. Orville looks at me and smiles and for some reason, I smile back. 

“There!” someone shouts, and I realize that we are being stared at. “Caspian gave them their drinks!”

The panic sets in and we run, ridiculous heels clapping the floorboards. We push through a wall of skirts and burst into the night, hand in hand, and I have never felt more alive than I do having taken part in death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well that was a fun little double homicide wasn't it!


End file.
